MediaPedia

So what about that video of the European Commission? Don't know what I'm talking about? Just look here...

No later than Thursday, Joe Hennon, recently appointed spokesperson for the commissioner on communication, told us that the European commission will focus more on Internet. Well... they already did it. The controversy around the video I linked to is a living proof of that. Why? Because all those videos already were on the European commission website, ready to be downloaded by anyone who wanted... but who really took the time to go to that website and look to videos about Europe?

"What we have on EUTube is material we already had. But why would people go to the Audio-visual section of our website instead of going to YouTube?", Mr. Hennon said.

And I have to admit that in the beginning I was a little skeptic about that (how would the boring videos produced by the European Commission could possibly rise the interest of young people on YouTube- or EUTube)? Well... I obviously, i hadn't seen them

European media production is not just for journalists any more. The young people of Europe are well educated and interested in their sourrounding society. Therefore they want to participate themselves in the production of medias, and they don't want to wait for slow journalists to discover new things - so they do it themselves.

Citizen journalism - this term was unknown in just recent past, now it has become a very common expression. People who are not journalists publish their blogs, post photos on sites such as Flickr, they communicate on MySpace, Facebook.. they are taking away our audience - the readers. Are they stealing our jobs? It may seem like that.

However, professional journalists are starting to appreciate citizen journalists because they have realized that these people have some impressive ideas, opinions and come up with amazing stories. It is a new trend that publishing houses actually PUBLISH the best blogs in printed newspapers.

There is debate that the psychical form of the newspaper will cease within 50 years. The Economist had a useful article about this, titled: WHO KILLED THE NEWSPAPER? Everything is going online and this is becoming a threat for the newspapers. In the future, newspapers are set to be so-called E-papers, digital papers which will be able to connect to our computer and update content.

Many things are happening in the media sector, for sure. With the internet-boom newspapers are experiencing biggest trouble in the history. Will everything go online? Will people only read articles online? Will radio and TV be purely online?

What will happen to citizen journalists? Professional journalists could profit from them! Just like it is starting to happen. Journalists are realizing that citizen journalists can inspire them with ideas and it's up to the professional journalists to make a quality piece out of the idea and quote the blog.

This can be the future - to cooperate.

Citizens partipate, make ud their mind and they create new media, but is that a good or a bad thing for 'regular' journalist? Is this the beginning to the end for professional journalism when more and more newspapers and television invite the citizens to make their own stories and to participate in creating media ? Luckily not, we think!! Citizens journalism is great in many ways because it includes the readers, viewers etc. But profesional journalist will still be needed to make the overview of the enormous amount of information. Journalist will still be needed to be critical about the citizen journalism and to make sure that the citizens aren't doing spin in the papers. Therefore journalists should not be afraid of blogs and other kinds of citizen journalism - in stead we should use the citizens participation to come up with new and great journalistic ideas.

- Kristina Havasova and Jane Thyrring

How does the new media influence the European Union institutions? Well, just ask Margot Wallstorm, the vice-president of the European Commission who made a lot of people jealous because the popularity of her blog. Yes, the vice president of the European Union is blogging and only last years, she had 2 million visitors on her website. People who know what the commissioner thinks now have the chance to find out directly, from her blog, just like Margot Wallstorm finds out what citizens think from the over 200 comments she gets on her posts.

Young journalists create media from their own point of view. What influence does our Erasmus Generation have? Thoughts that awoke in EYMD conference in Brussels.